The Speed of Thought

May, 2025

The hospitality suite overlooking Miami feels a world away from the feverish energy building in the paddock below. Tomorrow qualifying begins, but today Alexander Macalister sits across from me in thoughtful repose, his usual measured demeanour in place. We’ve been discussing the technical adjustments Ferrari has made since pre-season testing. The minutiae of front wing elements and diffuser modifications.

I decide to shift gears with a question that might seem elementary for a Formula 1 world champion.

“What does it take to be fast, Alexander?”

The transformation is immediate and striking. Like someone has flipped an internal switch, Macalister’s entire demeanour changes. The Ferrari champion, normally measured and economical with his words. takes a deep breath as his eyes reignite with unmistakable passion. I’ve inadvertently tapped into something fundamental to his being.

“It’s deceptive,” he begins, leaning forward. “On one level, it’s simple: brake later, accelerate sooner, keep it on the black stuff. But realistically, it’s unimaginably complex, especially in Formula 1.”

Macalister gestures with his hands, precisely mimicking steering inputs as he speaks. “The cars need to be driven in a very particular way, sometimes against your natural instincts. Tyre management is often the overriding factor.”

This is a different Alexander than the one who delivers carefully considered answers in press conferences. His hands are constantly moving now, sculpting invisible racing lines in the air between us.

“Then you can’t discount the psychological aspect. You need absolute self-belief and confidence in the car. The performance of an F1 car defies intuition. Sometimes you have to trust the engineers and calculations that say you can take a turn at 160kph when 130kph seems impossible.”

His expression darkens slightly. “And when you don’t have that confidence, when the car slides where it should stick, when it fights you back, there’s often nothing you can do. That’s why so many of us are quick but often appear slow. We’re struggling with the balance, figuring out what precise line will allow the car to finally stabilise on corner-entry or exit.”

I’ve watched Macalister in countless interviews, but I’ve never seen this level of animation. The carefully maintained public persona has momentarily vanished, revealing the racing obsessive beneath.

“It’s like those baby toys where you’re putting a star-shaped wooden block into the star-shaped hole. Except you don’t know what shape the piece is. And you’re blindfolded. And you’re centimetres from the wall going 290kph while someone like Lewis Hamilton is doing it faster than you.”

He pauses, a smile breaking across his face.

“God, I love it though.”

I ask what, specifically, he loves about it. Macalister falls into that characteristic pause that has become his signature. The momentary collection of thoughts before delivering something genuine.

“I love figuring this stuff out,” he says finally. “If driving these cars and winning were easy, I honestly don’t think I’d be doing it. I live for solving the puzzle. For doing today what I didn’t think was possible in the car yesterday.”

There’s an intensity to Macalister now that television cameras rarely capture. A quiet fervour that explains how this quiet teenager from Hertfordshire ascended to the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Pouring over the data, reviewing every little twitch of the car in extreme, vivid detail with the engineers. Knowing that I have to absolutely nail this lap, this corner, this braking point, this exit. Corner after corner, lap after lap.”

He glances toward the window, momentarily lost in thought.

“I love rally too, and I’m in awe of those drivers, but I don’t think I could be happy doing what they do, you know? They race each inch of the stage once. I need that continual chance to compare myself against myself. To find the improvement.”

Macalister circles back to my original question with the precision of his race craft.

“You asked what makes a driver fast. It’s rarely one thing. It’s a thousand little things each making a tiny difference. My job is to find and extract those thousand micro-improvements.”

He makes air quotes with his fingers. “‘Natural talent’ only gets you so far. No matter how gifted you might be, you could never step directly into Formula 1 and measure up. There’s simply no shortcut. It takes sacrificing everything to get just your foot in the door.”

As he concludes, his voice drops slightly, taking on an almost confessional quality.

“So I suppose that’s the last key part to what makes someone fast. They have to love this. Love this more than anything and anyone.”

It’s difficult to convey in print the thrilling, quiet intensity with which Macalister answers questions like this. As he finishes, I realise that at some point while listening to him, I had started to hold my breath.

What I’m witnessing isn’t simply technical knowledge, though Macalister possesses that in abundance. This is something more profound. This is the key to understanding the enigma that is Alexander Macalister: his relationship with speed isn’t primarily about defeating opponents; it’s about solving an infinite puzzle. Each lap presents fresh variables that must be calculated, balanced, and optimised in real-time.

For most elite drivers, winning is the ultimate goal. For Macalister, winning appears to be simply proof that he solved the puzzle correctly. The distinction is subtle but significant.

It was Amy Millie who first helped me understand this distinction during our conversation in Monaco. “Alexander doesn’t attack races,” she told me. “He solves them. His real battle isn’t with the other drivers. It’s with the puzzle itself. Can he find the perfect line, the optimal strategy, the exact balance the car needs? The other drivers are just variables in the equation he’s trying to solve.”

As our conversation shifts back to more workaday journalistic questions, I can’t help but reflect on how this approach to racing mirrors Macalister’s approach to personal tragedy. The orphaned teenager finding order and control in the meticulous world of motorsport. A world where variables can be understood, mastered, and occasionally perfected, unlike the cruel randomness of life itself.

Perhaps that’s why his final words, about loving racing more than “anything and anyone”, carry such weight. For Alexander Macalister, racing isn’t just a profession; it’s the framework through which he’s made sense of an otherwise senseless world. It’s the one arena where perfection, even if fleeting, remains possible.

---

THE MEMORY PALACE

July, 2025

The Ferrari engineering room at Silverstone circuit hums with controlled chaos. Screens display multicoloured telemetry data while engineers in red shirts work through setup variations. At the centre table, Alexander sits with his notebook open, cross-referencing handwritten notes with the data on Riccardo Adami’s screen.

“Luffield is where we’re bleeding time,” says Ricci, pointing to a data comparison. “Something about the way the car’s settling after Brooklands.”

Alexander flips back several pages in his notebook, running his finger down neat columns of data. “We had this before. Japan 2022, first practice.” He turns the notebook toward Ricci. “Left front damper was too stiff. We went down two clicks.”

The suspension engineer glances over from his station. “That was a different car, different tyres.”

“Same fundamental issue,” Alexander says, already sketching the weight transfer pattern on a fresh page. “The car won’t settle because we’re asking too much of the left front through the transition. Look—” He overlays the current telemetry with his sketch. “Same signature.”

Ricci nods, familiar with this process after years of working together. “Pull up Suzuka 2022, practice one,” he tells the data engineer. “Let’s check.”

“There,” the engineer says, bringing up the old session. “Two clicks softer on the left front damper, half a degree adjustment on the front wing.”

“Worth trying,” Ricci says, making notes. “Though we’ll need to watch the balance through Maggotts-Becketts.”

I watch from the corner as Alexander continues working through his notebook, occasionally adding new observations in his precise handwriting. What strikes me isn’t the feat of memory itself, but how methodically he’s built this system over years of obsessive note-taking.

“The difference with Alexander,” Ricci tells me later as we walk toward the garage, “is that he treats every piece of data like it might be useful someday. Most drivers forget a setup once they’ve moved to the next track. He files it all away.”

During the strategy meeting before qualifying, this approach reveals its value again. The discussion turns to defending position into the chicane.

“Verstappen’s move on Hamilton here in 2021,” Alexander says, pulling out his tablet and scrolling to a specific video file. “He compromised his exit from Stowe to position the car defensively. Cost him about two-tenths but secured the position.”

Ferrari’s strategist nods. “I was about to bring that up. Though I’m not sure it would work against Russell’s current driving style.”

“Different story,” Alexander agrees. “Russell brakes later into that sequence now than Lewis did then. We’d need to adjust the positioning by about five metres.”

This isn’t mystical recall, it’s the product of systematic study. Every evening after sessions, Alexander reviews not just his own data but archived races, competitor onboards, weather patterns. His Silverstone file alone contains notes from every session he’s driven here since Formula 3.

“Sometimes it’s annoying,” one engineer confides during lunch. “You think you have a brilliant new idea, then Alexander pulls out his notebook and shows you three times it’s been tried before. But,” he adds grudgingly, “it saves us from repeating old mistakes.”

Later that afternoon, during the debrief after final practice, a debate emerges about tyre degradation patterns. Several engineers offer theories while Alexander listens, occasionally checking something in his notes.

“Barcelona testing, February 2023,” he says eventually. “Not the same track surface, but similar temperature conditions and tyre construction.” He shows Ricci a graph he’d sketched during that test. “The degradation curve was steeper than predicted because of the wind direction affecting the car differently between sectors.”

Fred Vasseur, observing from the back of the room, catches my eye. There’s no amazement in his expression. Just the satisfaction of watching a well-oiled machine function properly.

“Every champion I’ve worked with had their method,” Fred tells me privately as the meeting disperses. “Some rely on feel, some on instinct. Alexander built himself a library and actually uses it.”

This systematic approach extends beyond pure data. During dinner, a team member mentions struggling with a similar setup issue at their previous team. Alexander listens, then says, “Williams had that problem in 2019. I remember watching their onboards and thinking they were losing time in the same phase of the corner. Have you tried contacting anyone from their engineering team from that period?”

“Christ, that was six years ago,” the engineer says. “How do you even remember that?”

Alexander shrugs. “I was studying their car philosophy at the time. Made notes about their suspension characteristics.” He pauses. “I can send you the relevant onboard links if it helps.”

“He assumes everyone takes notes like he does,” Claudia tells me later. “He’ll casually reference some obscure detail from years ago, not realising most people don’t maintain a personal database of every racing moment they’ve witnessed.”

As the engineers pack up for the night, I find Alexander at his usual spot, updating his notes with today’s findings. His Silverstone notebook is thick with data, sketches, and observations. Not a memory palace but something more practical: a meticulously maintained reference library that he’s learned to navigate with exceptional speed.

“It’s just preparation,” he says when I ask about it. “The more you understand about what’s happened before, the better equipped you are for what’s happening now.”

---

THE SILVERSTONE GAMBLE

July, 2025

Silverstone, Lap 36 of 52. From my position in the Ferrari garage, I watched Alexander thread his SF-25 through Maggotts and Becketts with the fluid precision that had already earned him three victories this season. The British summer sky, which had been threatening all afternoon, was finally making good on its promise.

“Rain expected in three minutes,” Ricci’s voice came over the radio. “Getting ready for inters.”

Through the TV monitors, I could see other teams reacting to the same weather data. Mechanics were already wheeling intermediate tyres into position. This was Silverstone in July. When rain came, you responded immediately or paid the price.

“How heavy?” Alexander asked, his breathing steady after the high-speed Copse corner.

“Radar shows moderate intensity, unclear duration.”

What happened next would become one of those moments that defined Alexander’s reputation for calculated risk-taking. As the first drops began to fall at the far end of the circuit, Oscar Piastri immediately dove for the pits.

“Box this lap for inters,” Ricci instructed. “Piastri is pitting for inters.”

“Negative,” Alexander replied. “This won’t last.”

I watched the members on the pit wall exchange concerned glances. The orthodox move was clear. Cover your competitor, protect track position, especially with rain intensifying.

“Alexander, rain increasing sector one,” Ricci’s voice carried an edge of urgency.

“I need to see one more lap,” Alexander insisted. “Prepare new hards, not inters.”

The garage erupted in confused murmurs. Slick tyres in the rain? At Silverstone?

“Confirm you want slicks?” Ricci’s disbelief was evident.

“Affirm. This is a passing shower. Look at the cloud movement.”

Ravin Jain pulled up the weather radar, studying it intently. “He might be right,” he said quietly. “The cell is moving quickly.”

Lap 37 began with Alexander on worn medium tyres as rain began falling in earnest. Through the notorious Becketts complex, I watched his Ferrari beginning to dance, the rear stepping out as water pooled on the racing line.

“Box, box, box!” Ricci called as Alexander nearly lost it through Club corner, the car sliding wide in a graceful but heart-stopping arc.

“Copy. Hards. Not inters,” Alexander responded, his voice strained with the concentration of controlling the increasingly wayward Ferrari.

The pit stop was one of the most agonising I’d witnessed. Alexander emerged on fresh slick tyres just as the rain was reaching its peak intensity. It looked like a catastrophic miscalculation.

Through Copse on cold slicks in the wet, Alexander’s Ferrari snapped sideways so violently that photographers would later capture all four wheels pointing in different directions from the car’s direction of travel. He caught it, barely, but emerged at half speed.

“Inters available,” Ricci offered, his tone carefully neutral.

“Negative,” Alexander grunted, wrestling the car through Maggotts. “Two more laps.”

Those two laps were painful to watch. Piastri on intermediates carved past him at the Wellington Straight. Then came Verstappen, Russell, both revelling in the appropriate tyre choice. Alexander dropped from second to sixth, looking like a man who’d gambled and lost.

But he’d seen something others hadn’t.

“Rain easing, sector three,” he reported on lap 39, even as he struggled for grip through the wet sections. “Track temp still high. It’ll dry quickly.”

He was right. Silverstone’s exposed layout and the July heat began working their magic. By lap 40, dry lines were appearing. By lap 43, those on intermediates were starting to struggle, their tyres overheating on the drying surface. Alexander, already on slicks he’d suffered with through the worst of the rain, began showing in his sector times that the “crossover” had arrived. The moment where slicks on a damp track become faster than intermediate tyres on a drying track.

“Piastri boxing for slicks,” Marcos announced.

Then Russell. Then Verstappen. Each stop took 20-plus seconds, the time needed to switch from grooved intermediates back to slick dry tyres.

“We’ve got good temperature in the tyres now,” he reported, his voice notably calm. “Pace is coming.”

By lap 45, he’d reclaimed the lead, passing Piastri who emerged from his second stop on cold tyres. What had looked like an error of judgement had transformed into strategic brilliance.

“Sometimes,” Alexander would tell me after taking the chequered flag, still buzzing from the demands of those treacherous laps, “you have to trust what you see, not what everyone else is doing. I got the intensity wrong… it was definitely heavier than I calculated. Nearly put it in the barriers at Copse.” Alexander paused, with a momentary recall of what might have been. “But I could see,” Alexander continued, now mentally back in the current moment, “the clouds moving, feel the track temperature through the car’s behaviour. Ten minutes of rain at Silverstone in July doesn’t mean a wet race. It often means an opportunity if you’re willing to look like an idiot for a few laps.”

Ricci joined us, shaking his head with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. “Next time, maybe just take the safe option and spare me aging ten years in ten laps?”

Alexander smiled that rare, unguarded expression that emerged only after particularly satisfying victories. “I grew up here, remember, I know my summer showers.” Then more sheepishly, “More or less.”

It was this moment, the admission of imperfect calculation, the acceptance of looking foolish, the trust in observed patterns over conventional wisdom, that revealed what truly separated Alexander from his peers. Not flawless computation, but the courage to act on incomplete calculations while dancing on the edge of disaster.

At Silverstone, in front of his home crowd, he’d shown that sometimes the finest margin between genius and catastrophe is simply being willing to endure the latter long enough to achieve the former.

---

THE EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT

July, 2025

The Ferrari hospitality area at Silverstone has emptied after the day’s practice sessions. Outside, typical British summer weather oscillates between scattered showers and brief sunshine, keeping teams guessing about qualifying conditions. Inside, Alexander Macalister sits across from me, cradling a cup of tea, his race suit peeled halfway down and tied around his waist.

Five years into our ongoing conversations in F1 about his approach to racing, I’ve come to recognise the subtle differences between his public and private personas. The man before me now, thoughtful, analytical, yet surprisingly open, represents a marked evolution from the guarded rookie I first interviewed in 2021.

“How has your analytical approach changed since those early days in Formula 1?” I ask.

Alexander considers the question with characteristic thoroughness. “It’s less… sequential now,” he says finally. “When I first arrived in F1, I processed information in distinct stages. Observe conditions, analyse options, execute plan. Very linear.” He traces three distinct points on the table with his finger. “Each step had to be completed before moving to the next.”

He leans back, more relaxed than I’ve typically seen him in the paddock. “Now those processes happen simultaneously. The observation feeds the analysis, which adjusts the execution, which creates new observations. All flowing together in a continuous loop.” His hand makes a circular motion. “It’s not just faster; it’s more integrated.”

This evolution is something Fred Vasseur highlighted to me earlier. “In 2021, he was extraordinary but sometimes rigid,” the Ferrari team principal had explained. “He’d commit to an approach based on his analysis and execute it perfectly, but adapting mid-race if circumstances changed, and that was his growth area. Now he’s like a chess grandmaster who can immediately recalculate the entire game when the opponent makes an unexpected move.”

“Does that make racing easier?” I ask.

Alexander laughs. It’s a genuine sound rarely heard in formal interviews. “No. The opposite, actually. I’m aware of more variables now, process more information.” He gestures toward the window where rain spatters intermittently. “Five years ago, I’d register: ‘It’s raining, track is wet.’ Now I’m automatically calculating rainfall rates, comparing water dispersion between different track sections, projecting temperature impact on drying patterns, all while maintaining awareness of competitors’ likely strategic responses.”

Ricci Adami, who joins us briefly with setup data for Alexander to review, offers his perspective. “Early in his career, he would ask us very specific questions during races. Now he often tells us what’s happening before our sensors detect it. At Barcelona this year, he reported a change in wind direction affecting Turns 1 and 2 before our anemometers registered the shift.”

This increased processing capacity explains what many have observed as Alexander’s most remarkable quality: his ability to drive at the absolute limit while simultaneously managing complex strategic calculations. Where some drivers must choose between pushing or thinking, he integrates both seamlessly.

“Is there a limit to how many variables you can process?” I ask.

“Definitely,” he nods. “I’ve worked with sports psychologists to optimise my mental bandwidth, but it’s still finite. The key isn’t processing more information; it’s identifying which information matters in each specific scenario.”

This selective focus is something Alexander has refined through experience. His race engineer describes how they’ve developed a communication shorthand over the years, distilling complex situations into essential components that require minimal radio exchange. What might take thirty seconds of explanation with another driver is communicated to Alexander in three or four precisely chosen words.

“The balance between analysis and intuition has shifted too,” Alexander continues unprompted. “Early in my career, I was almost exclusively analytical, breaking everything down to its components, rebuilding it in my mind. There was security in that approach, control.”

He adjusts his position, leaning forward. “But I’ve learned to trust my subconscious processing more. Sometimes I’ll make a decision on track without consciously walking through every step of the analysis. The calculation still happens, but beneath conscious awareness.”

This evolution toward integrating intuition with analysis represents perhaps Alexander’s most significant development. Where his rookie self needed to understand every aspect explicitly, the champion before me has learned to trust the accumulated wisdom of thousands of racing hours.

Watching him scroll through setup data on a tablet Adami left behind, I’m struck by how his hands move with the same precise economy he shows at the wheel. No wasted motion, every gesture purposeful. The parallels between his physical and mental approach are unmistakable.

“How do you continue developing this aspect of your racing?” I ask as he sets the tablet aside.

Alexander’s expression grows more animated. It’s a glimpse of the same passion I witness when asking him what makes a driver fast, or any technical aspect of his pursuit.

“That’s the beauty of it: it’s limitless,” he says, eyes brightening. “Every race presents new variables, new puzzles. Monaco this year, with those unpredictable weather patterns, raised questions I’d never considered about how rubber compound chemistry interacts with specific types of sudden ambient temprature drops. There’s always something new to understand.”

His enthusiasm reaffirms what I observed in that first interview. This isn’t merely professional dedication but genuine passion for the intellectual challenge racing presents. When he speaks about analyzing tire degradation patterns or processing crosswind effects through high-speed corners, there’s an almost childlike fascination beneath the technical sophistication.

“We experiment constantly in practice sessions,” he continues. “I’ll try deliberately different approaches in identical corners on consecutive laps, then compare the data. It’s like conducting miniature scientific experiments at 300kph.”

The scientist’s methodical approach combined with the artist’s intuitive feel. This synthesis has become Alexander Macalister’s defining characteristic as a champion. Not merely fast but comprehensively accomplished; not simply intelligent but intellectually curious in a way that continually expands his capabilities.

As our conversation winds down, I ask if there’s anything about his analytical approach that he wishes fans understood better.

He reflects before answering. “Perhaps that it’s not about eliminating risk, but about understanding it precisely. I’m not cautious. I take enormous risks when the calculation justifies it.”

This echoes something Adami had emphasised when describing Alexander’s qualifying brilliance: “In Singapore last year, he carried visibly more speed through Turn 5 than anyone else, including his multi-world champion competitors. Not because of bravery, but because he had calculated that with the cooling track temperature and his tyre preparation, that specific level of commitment was possible.”

“Not safe,” Adami had emphasised, “Possible. There is a difference.”

Alexander continues: “The public often confuses methodical with conservative. But understanding exactly where the limit exists allows you to operate precisely at that limit, which is actually more aggressive than taking random un-calculated risks.”

This insight crystallises what makes Alexander unique among champions. While others might occasionally exceed their capabilities through sheer determination or artistic inspiration, his analytical approach enables him to extract the maximum possible performance with remarkable consistency. He rarely leaves performance untapped because his understanding of the variables is so complete.

As he prepares to leave for an engineering meeting, I’m reminded of that revealing moment months ago in Miami when he confessed to loving racing “more than anything and anyone.” At the time, I interpreted it as the lonely dedication of an orphaned teenager who’d found purpose in motorsport’s meticulous world.

Now, with the benefit of writing this book, coupled with years observing his evolution, I see something more nuanced. His relationship with racing has matured alongside his analytical approach. It has become not just an escape from personal tragedy but a genuine expression of his unique brilliance. The methodical problem-solver has found his perfect problem.

“This approach to racing, it continues evolving?” I ask as a final question.

Alexander pauses at the doorway, his expression suggesting he’s already mentally processing setup changes for tomorrow.

“It has to,” he says simply. “Staying static means falling behind. Lewis has refined his driving for nearly two decades and countless regulation changes. Max keeps finding new dimensions to his talent. If I’m not constantly evolving my approach, I’ll be watching them from behind.”

He offers a rare smile. “That’s what makes this so fulfilling. The puzzle is never solved permanently, only temporarily, for one specific moment. Then conditions change, competitors adapt, technology advances, and you start again. It’s infinite.”

With that, he’s gone. Off to the engineering meeting where he’ll absorb more data, process more variables, and refine his understanding further. The pursuit of the perfect lap continues, not as a fixed destination but as an ever-evolving journey that Alexander Macalister embraces with both scientific precision and genuine joy.

The paddock outside stirs with activity as teams adjust to the changing weather. Within each garage, engineers analyse practice data, searching for milliseconds. But in Ferrari’s technical room, Alexander Macalister will be doing something subtly different. He won’t just be seeking speed but understanding it completely, his extraordinary mind transforming the chaos of modern Formula 1 into a perfectly ordered system that only he can fully comprehend.